


'H'.^'-f^-;^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

©!in|i'?S2'^©Jp|ri3l|t :f n 

i UNITED STATES OF AMEKICA. 



THE IMAGE OF AIR, 



AND OTHER POEMS. 



BY 



ALGERNON SYDNEY LOGAN, 

AUTHOR OF " THE MIRROR OF A MIND." 



H...j.7.6:^J.'')] 



PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
1878. 



7/ 






Copyright 1878, by Algernon Sydney Logan. 



CONTENTS. 



THE IMAGE OF AIR 



A SONG OF YOUTH 



MORNING 



SONG 



THE SONG OF THE SHELL 
SONNET TO THE HOURS . 



PAGE 

5 

21 



TO THE DEAD IN THE SEA 23 

TO THE WIND 25 

AUTUMN LEAVES 28 

30 



34 
37 
40 

44 



THE IMAGE OF AIR. 

TT was the early Autumn, and the wind, 
Like some lone maiden half to sport inclined. 
And half to sadness, who through woodland ways 
Moves aimless, singing wild and broken lays, 
Sang restlessly amidst the restful tombs. 
Now soft it breathed upon the hanging blooms 
Of salvia, which with conquest-loving hue 
Around the base of many a statue grew, 
Making their icy pallor more complete; 



And now with hollow laugh for madness meet. 



THE IMAGE OF AIR. 

Discordant laugh of Destiny, the wind, 
Like one too heartless e'en to be unkind, 
Seized on the leaves by Summer's passion 

seared, 
And bore them from the present. 

As I neared 
The centre of the spot the evening fell — 
Pale Evening, with her mind-completing spell, 
Whose gentle hand, invisible, is prone 
To bear the balance of our musings down. 
Giving due weight to thoughts impalpable, 
By day too little reckoned. Evening fell. 
The unstable gilding of the western sky, 
A moment hence too brilliant for the eye, 



THE IMAGE OF AIR. y 

Began to slowly tarnish and to fade ; 

Around me gleamed from dusky copse and 

glade — 
Some straight and tall, some leaning to decay — 
The emblems pale of effort past away. 
The youthful tombs were white as drifted snow, 
The aged dark — they darker ever grow — 
Forming grim contrast to man's destiny, 
Who still grows whiter as the years creep by. 
My thoughts went wandering 'midst the mindful 

stones, 
Mindful of names of long-forgotten bones, 
Culling some mosses from mortality. — 
Thoughts are there which do cheat the mental eye, 



8 THE IMAGE OF AIR. 

So complex is their nature : now they seem 

Near and famihar, now a sudden gleam 

Will lightning-like show cloud-forms far away ; 

Now do they move as reasonings cold and gray, 

Now as warm memories passionate sweep along ; 

Now as one shape, now as a spirit throng 

Such musings meet us, till their sense to hold 

We fain must press them to one stable mould — 

We consciously with form our thoughts endow 

That we may treat with them. With motion slow 

From out the vapors of the coming night 

A shadow rose before me — no grim sprite, 

The child of superstition — but a shade 

By me from thoughts of saddest import made. 



THE IMAGE OF AIR. 

Aged he seemed, though not yet near his prime- 
A withered flower bids us think of time, 
E'en though the wrinkles on its velvet cheek 
Were furrowed by the hour ; his mien was bleak 



As if 'midst magic mountains lingering, 



He deep had drunk of some enchanted spring 
Within whose every bubble lurked a year ; 
With careless steps unmeasured he drew near — 
Then sudden paused — but even his very pause 
Was, like his motions, restless, and the laws 
Which ruled his looks and motions were unknown, 
For these were rhythmless and each alone — 
As the long tendrils of neglected vines 
O'er casements hanging in entangled lines, 



10 THE IMAGE OF AIR. 

Sway without concert to the wind's wild strain, 

And tap with aimless fingers on the pane. 

Oh, he was beautiful beyond compare. 

His face than man's, nay, more than woman's 

fair, 
Yet 'twas a beauty that with pained amaze 
Filled the beholder ; for beneath the gaze 
It seemed to fade, yet gazing none might know 
If it had faded, or was always so. 
Through all his being, even to his sigh, 
There breathed a palpable uncertainty. 
To look upon him was to feel a pang, 
A dread, though none might say from whence it 
sprang — 



THE IMAGE OF AIR. n 

A straining of the mind, bewilderment, 

Hope and suspense in strange confusion blent. 

The wildest voices of the mind awoke 

Within his presence, and as forth they broke 

Into a hurried chant, pale Memory 

Holding her solemn harp stood silent by, 

And struck wild chords between the wilder staves — 

A sound of question, restless as the waves ! 

For at his sight there swept across the soul 

A consciousness of thoughts beyond control, 

As from the past when feverishly we strive 

Some joy forgotten vainly to revive, 

Some dream of beauty deaf to Memory's call, 

Which once familiar mocks our efforts all. 



12 THE IMAGE OF AIR. 

In all his motions, gestures, features, mien, 

An incomplete perfection there was seen, 

A loveliness unearthly, wild and free, 

From its fair sequence severed. Near to me 

The figure drew, then quickly paused again. 

As if the creature of his laboring brain ; 

His eye, which like a v/ind-tormented flame, 

Now pale and blue, now gleaming bright became. 

Fell on a fragile tablet which he bore — 

His hand flew fast, his thoughts his hand before— 

He wrote o'er half the tablet, and anon 

Gazed quickly round, as if in quest of one 

To whom it might be shown — but none appeared- 

Then faded grew his eye, his features bleared : 



THE IMAGE OE AIR. 13 



Dim grew his form, fantastical and gray, 
Even as the spirits of the storms when they 
Around the moon their magic misty ring 
Form hand in hand, and to her footsteps cHng 
To stay the shadow ere it o-rew inwrought 

J OS) 

With other forms around, I said, or tliought, 
"Who art thou that in such phantasmal guise 
Still bearest the weight of human energies ?" 
As memories of dreams to present care. 
As crescent moonlight is to midday's glare, 
So to all human voices, when he spoke. 
The sound I felt, which silence never broke :— 
" I am the shape of one who lived in vain, 
If being be to be not, since I gain 



4 THE IMAGE OE AIR. 



An entity in speech which is not mine ; 

Yet mayst thou in this evanescent hne 

The wraith in words of that which was behold, 

As I in form." Ere ceased his utterance cold, 

Which seemed remembered and not heard, he gained 

A marble shaft, and from its surface planed 

Its frigid eulogy, its grief of ice, — 

Each awkward text, each weary dull device, 

Dates, emblems, letters, all he did erase — 

All save a lyre sculptured at the base — 

Then glowing like the wisp that skips the moat, 

A phantom epitaph the phantom wrote 

In letters coldly luminous ; it seemed 

As if a glow-worm o'er the marble gleamed, 



THE IMAGE OF AIR. 15 

Creeping- across it with his lantern green, 

For each word vanished ere the next was seen : 



" What is it in the garden of the Earth 

If one bud wither, lovely though it be ? 

If one mind fails the promise of its birth, 

W^hat loss to man in man's Eternity ? 

This stone the type of cold rigidity, 

This snow which noonday melts not, stands for 

one 
Who deemed his mission was to feel and see ; 
For in him Nature's changing face was shown, 
As seas and flowers change their aspect with the 

sun. 



1 6 THE IMAGE OF AIR. 

** Look down upon a plain of blooming flowers, 

A forest, or the ocean, and behold 

How these are grave or gay but as the hours 

Which float above are clad in gray or gold — 

Like these he changed, yet long ere he grew old 

His heart became of one dull changeless hue; 

The hedge 'twixt him and hopes, which childhood 

bold 
A tussock deemed, a giant barrier grew — 
Each year it seemed to gain in height and briers 

new. 

" His was no sombre self-consoled despair 
Which thinks the world as stupid as unkind, — 



THE IMAGE OF AIR. ly 

He deemed that he was wanting, and with care 

He strove his nature's secret flaw to find; 

He roamed o'er foreign lands and saw mankind 

In many aspects, and with toil by night 

He probed the thoughts of many a perished mind, — 

By day he watched, all breathlessly, the fight 

Which freedom ever makes against inhuman might. 

" But as each hour adown time's chasm rolled. 

Toil unrewarded wrought its vengeance dire — 

His heart grew weary and his hand grew cold 

In stirring the unfed, unwilling fire ; 

And as upon some lofty granite spire 

The seeds, wind-wafted, lodging one by one, 

2* 



1 8 THE IMAGE OF AIR. 

With tiny thews which ages cannot tire 

Hurl crumbHng down each mighty sculptured stone, 

So fell his noblest thoughts by petty cares o'ergrown. 

'* Oh, he was like a sprig of severed bay, 

Whose functions perish ere its beauty cease. 

Or like the smiles that o'er the features play 

Of midnight sleepers, powerless to please, 

And lost in darkness. Trived of rest and ease. 

He could not frame his mind to sink, or soar — 

His was obscurity without its peace; 

For though life's winds his cloud-built empire 

tore, 
Still phantom pageants swept his dazzled eyes before. 



19 



THE IMAGE OF AIR. 

** Now all he was and all he strove to be, 
All that he hoped that others might become, 
Although recorded, none shall ever see — 
Far better had he been forever dumb ; 
His hope of fame " 



The spectre's hand was raised 
More syllables to form, when sudden blazed 
Athwart the ivy leaves' inwoven bar 
The eternal radiance of a rising star — 
Some thought of hope which lurked within the ray 
Made the dim shadow's shadow fade away. 
He faded fast, and left me standing there 
Alone with Nature and relieved of care. 



20 THE IMAGE OF AIR. 

Thou silent witness that though crushed by ill 

We are a part of something glorious still ! 

Sensation of expansion and expanse 

Which lifts our thoughts above the fretful trance 

Of our too subtle musings, the dull fear 

That we but follow in the world's career, 

The self-tormenting effort to be great, 

How do these fade before thy tranquil state ! 

Oh, Nature, Nature, effortless and calm. 

Thy beauty is the soul's eternal balm. 



AUGUST. 

T WANDERED through the chilly night, 

I heard the whip-poor-will, 
The passing brant on high did chant, 

The frogs sang sharp and shrill ; 
And many a wild bird in his flight, 

With ghostly fall and swell, 
To the far north, whence he came forth, 

Did hymn his wild farewell. 

The Summer's cloak was faded, 
Her matron bloom was gone, 



22 AUGUST. 

Her queenly pace had lost its grace, 

Her cheek was worn and wan ; 
But the moon as calmly waded 

The depths of the cloudless sky 
As she did on the night when the queen was dight 

In the robes of majesty. 

And I thought how the dews of even, 

As they gather on the brow, 
May be made to gleam with the tingeless beam 

Of a light not born below — 
How the glow from our inner heaven, 

With its sheen of deathless white, 
May cast a ray on our senseless clay 

In the soul's eternal night. 



TO THE DEAD IN THE SEA. 

A /T OURN not, ye children of the sea, ye dead ! 
That no stone idly crumbles o'er your head — 
The mounds that heave above your ashes are 
As green as those o'er church-yard sepulchre, — 
Yet who can mark their place ? Is not each wave 
An ever-green, far-rolling, restless grave ? 
Ye are not as the earth-bound dead, all still 
And speechless ; for I hear, with a wild thrill, 
Your laughter mingle with the seethe and roar, 
As fall the breakers on the midnight shore ; 

23 



24 TO THE DEAD IN THE SEA. 



And as the foam gleams glistening through the night, 
Your hands stretch out towards me ghastly white, 
And clutching as to draw me to the sea — 
What, would ye swell your vast fraternity ? 



TO THE WIND. 

TIJ^TERNAL minstrel! who through every land 

Harpest wild melodies from door to door, 
Thy lays 'neath palace eaves are not more grand 
Than in the smoky chimneys of the poor. 

Saddest of harpers ! of thy songs, can none 
Back to the lip a vanished smile recall ? 

No, there is not of all thy ditties one 
But wakes a sigh, or bids a tear to fall. 

3 25 



26 TO THE WIND. 

Thou singst of home to those that houseless rove, 
Past friends to those mankind despise and scorn, 

Thy songs tell trembling age it once could love, 
And bid unwilling youth feel it shall mourn ; 

Thou singst of weed-grown graves with mossy stones 
Which we in life's rough race have left behind — 

But thou dost not neglect them, and thy tones 
With kindred music wake the sleeping mind ; 

Thou singst of our own graves which thou shalt see. 
Of endless change which leaves thee still the same. 

Of all we are not, and yet wished to be 

In brighter hours ere hearts and hopes grew tame. 



TO THE WIND. 27 



Pilgrim impalpable! thy viewless feet 



Through ages still must roam from clime to clime, 



But even thee at last a bourn shall greet — 
Thy head shall rest upon the tomb of Time. 



AUTUMN LEAVES. 

^ I ^HE leaves lie cold 

On the cumbered mould, 
Their corpses lie white all around, — 

Uninterred where they fall. 

Till their whiter pall 
By Winter is spread on the ground ; 

But when March, with his cloud 

And his voice so loud. 

As he shouts in the leafless tree, 
28 



A UTUMN LEA VES. 

Shall lift with his hand 
Their pall from the land, 
The corpses shall vanished be. 



29 



A SONG OF YOUTH. 

1\ /riDDLE-AGE, stand aside! on thy hopes 
there's a damper, 
There is cold in thy eye, there's a doubt in thy 
pace — 
Stand aside from his path, lest the course thou 
shouldst hamper 
Of one who will die or succeed in the race. 

He comes like the wind as it sweeps o'er the reeds 
Which cover the marshes so wide and so green ; 
30 



A SONG OF YOUTH. 31 



He leans from his chariot and lashes his steeds, — 
Streaming backward his hair and his garments are 
seen. 

There is heaven in his eye, there's a light on his 
brow, 
There's a curl on his lip, with the scorn of his 
pride. 
As he cheers to his coursers his heart is aglow, 
And he sees not the being who clings to his side ; 

Fair, fair is her face as the pond lily's pure, 

As it floats o'er its grave in the depths of the 
stream — 



32 



A SONG OF YOUTH. 



Her glance is bewildered, half timid, half sure — 
She has fears for his danger and hopes for his 
scheme. 

Swift as the dews of morning that fade in the loving 

light, 
Swift as the words of warning we heard on a by-gone 
night, 
Swift as the spray 
That floats away 

Before him Fame doth fly — 
Her face is a vapor cold and gray, 
'Tis her back enchants his eye. 



A SONG OF YOUTH. 33 



Let him on till he win her, and then he will find 
She is dust on the billow and chaff on the wind — 
Let him on till he win her, and then he will know 
How vain the best efforts of mortals below. 

Trembling Age, halt away with thy cane and thy 
crutch, 
There's a film on thy eye, on thy cheek sits 
decline — 
Away! in his pathway a feather is much, 

And he needs all his strength, without hindrance 
of thine. 



MORNING. 

TOEHOLD, the Morn, pale daughter of the Sun, 
From her deep dream within the east awakes — 

A ray to gild her lattice has begun, 

A fitful breeze her cloudy curtain shakes. 

A deep-blue veil enshrouds her face serene — 
In vapory folds her tunic floats afar — 

A mantle, too, she wears of lip;htest p-reen — 
Her rosy feet rest on the morning star. 
34 • 



35 



MORNING. 

Within her hand a crystal cup she holds, 

From which she ever flino-s the ting-eless dew, 

Whose magic might each drooping bud unfolds, 
Bathing the waking world in beauty new. 

Her friends the flowers uplift their pearly heads, 
And breathe a blessing as she passes by — 

Their new-born breath upon the light wind treads. 
And wreathing upward, melts into the sky. 

The pale cold thoughts of wisdom, doubts of joy 

Which doth not turn his burning eyes above. 
Longing for endless fame, and glimpses coy 



Of things for which in vain the mind hath strove. 



36 MORNING. 

These wait on her ; and now to earth again 
She sends these forms which flit about her urn^ 

They knock a moment at the hearts of men, 
Then hasten upwards never to return. 

The glowing stars, her flocks of golden fleece, 
She, their fair shepherdess, doth drive away 

Westward across the far horizon's crease. 

And follows from our sight — But lo, 'tis day. 



SONG. 



HE moon with her viewless hands, 



T 

Transparent, light and free, 
Was parting a place 
For her dreamy face 



To gaze on the troubled sea. 



There were bells in wave-washed hands, 
Which tolled eternally ; 
There was roar on roar, 
Far down the shore, 



And laughter out to sea. 



37 



38 SONG. 

There were four on the sands to-night, 
Two shadows and two forms — 
Behind and before 
Flew the froth on the shore, 
And foam on the land of storms. 

Need shadows, or shapes more light ? 
O which has the firmer home ? 
Which stabler stuff, 
The moth-like fluff, 
Or the bird-like flying foam ? 

O heart-uniting kiss ! 
O bosom beatingr free ! 



SONG. 

O eyelids wet 
With joy! and yet— 
The wild bells out to sea ! 

Through the languor of the kiss 
Which wrapped them tenderly, 
Came the steady roar 
Far down the shore, 
And the laughter out to sea ! 



39 



THE SONG OF THE SHELL. 

l^OWN, down in the depths of the deep blue sea, 

Far from the home of the spray, 
In the stillness of eternity 

For ages I dreamily lay. 

And the pale sea-flowers that round me drank 

The light that crept through the brine, 
Year after year arose and sank 

Seen by no eye but mine ; 
40 



THE SONG OF THE SHELL. 41 

And the ships above through the depths pro- 
found 

Sent shadows with faces gray, 
Who afraid of the dimness that threatened around 

Stole o'er us and crept away ; 

And far above us the fishes passed, 

Like shades when the sky is dim ; 
But we heard not the tramp of the waves as they 
massed, 

Nor the hurricane's battle-hymn. 

The sunbeams swam down to us spent and pale 
Ere they reached our distant home ; 



42 THE SONG OF THE SHELL. 

But the moonbeams scorned our quiet vale, 
And slept on the eddying foam. 

But the sibyl who dwells in the midst of the 
flood, 
The soul of the changing deep, 
On her way through her realm before me 
stood, 
And roused me from my sleep ; 

And over my back she dimly traced. 

In a running and watery hand, 
Strange letters in lines that each other effaced, 

Like the ripples that seek the sand. 



7HE SONG OF THE SHELL. 

'* Ye are the leaves of the ocean," she said, 
" The sibyUine leaves of the sea — 

Go forth from the haunt of the graveless dead, 
Washed wide by the foam in its glee. 

" And darkly forever recall to man 

With thoughts of your boundless home, 

The gulfs on each side of his own slight span, 
The infinites past and to come." 

She tore me away from my parent rock. 

But fast to this weed I clung — 
Long was I tossed with many a shock, 

And here at last was flung. 



43 



SONNET TO THE HOURS. 

X/'E motley throng that pass before mine eyes, 
Onward, still onward, unreturning crew, 
Of every size, of every shape and hue, — 

Some smiling, and from lips like morning skies 

Breathing the laughter soft of Paradise, — 
Some stalking by with faces dead and blue, 
While round our steps they sprigs of cypress 
strew 

In ghastly silence — why, alas, some prize 
44 



SONNET TO THE HOURS. 45 

Do ye each call bear from us ? Leaf by leaf 
Youth's stalwart tree ye take away, and blast 

Hope's unripe fruit and Joy's half-garnered sheaf, 
Until so little there is left at last 

To tempt you forth from out your secret home, 

'Tis strancre the last stern hour should ever come. 



THE END. 



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